The Korea Creative Content Agency, a government-sponsored organisation, is set to stage a showcase of four South Korean designers at London Fashion Week Men’s. The presentation will feature apparel brands Me.Yoomi, Sewing Boundaries and Dozoh as well as custom footwear label Redmeteor Design. The showcase will run from Friday 6 to Monday 9 January at 180 strand. (Full story at WWD)

Head of footwear at Next to join supplier Sugi International

The head of men’s footwear at Next Samuel Nettey has left the retailer to join high street footwear supplier Sugi International, where he will establish the firm’s first British office. Nettey will be the head of design and development for Britain at Sugi, where he will lead a team of 10 in the supplier’s new office based east London, focusing on product development and trend research. Founded in 1990, Sugi International is based in Hong Kong and has offices in China, the US and Spain. It designs and manufactures footwear for retailers including Asos, Next, River Island, Topshop and Zara. (Full story at Drapers Online)

Customers are becoming designers as the customisation trend booms

As the penchant for customisation continues to grow, from patches on jacket to personalised footwear and leather goods, brands are capitalising on channelling consumer input into products in a previously unseen move into harnessing the buyer as a designer. Increasingly, new start-ups are developing something that tends towards the bespoke, moving away from adding something to an existing design, to creating it in the first place. “Fashion brands are realising that to stay ahead of the game they need to move away from imposing their aesthetic on others,” says Maks Fus Mickiewicz, senior journalist at trend analyst the Future Laboratory. “That’s not how the world works anymore. There’s a new dialogue with consumers.” (Full story at The Guardian)